


The Lament Configuration

by LauraDoloresIssum



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9328169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/pseuds/LauraDoloresIssum
Summary: A feminist reimagining of Edward/Kristen's relationship, particularly with regards to its "ending" in early Season 2 and resultant Riddler development. Knowledge of Seasons 1&2 recommended but not necessary.





	

Ultimately, Edward blamed himself. If he had just been better at talking, at expressing, maybe none of this would have happened. But people had never been his strong suit. Reading them, talking to them, was like trying to nail down string theory using an abacus. People were a puzzle he still hadn’t mastered, and as he lay sobbing on the floor he repudiated himself over and over for this immense personal failing. He was just toxic, he had to finally accept that. He was a toxic monster from somewhere cold and cramped and undeserving, a mound of bright green glowing radioactive sludge that hurt everything it touched. He wasn’t any better than them. He certainly wasn’t good enough for Kristen. He didn’t deserve to have friends.

 

?           ?            ?

 

“Mr. Nygma.”

He turned around, and Miss Kringle was standing there, holding a large stack of papers with his riddle on top. He immediately began to feel horribly anxious, as he always did when she was around. He pressed his clipboard to his chest and tried to force his spine to grow another inch. He had no idea what that tone meant. Miss Kringle was not smiling or crying, which were the only two facial expressions he could confidently read offhand. He presented his usual smile, hoping she would smile back so he knew what she was feeling. He always vaguely hoped when he saw her that she would look happy, but it seemed that since she had been dating Arnold Flass from Narcotics this had been less and less frequently the case.

“Miss Kringle,” he said, staring at the papers in her hands. Eye contact was nearly impossible for him.

She removed the tissue. “Mr. Nygma, you left this on my desk.”

Oh, no. He wasn’t sure how he felt. She knew, and he had no idea how she was going to react. He wouldn’t be surprised if she just hated him.

“Yes, Miss Kringle.”

He glanced up as far as her mouth, and he saw her eyes were narrowed. He went with his usual guess of “not a good face.”

“Care to explain why?”

He resisted the urge to stim back and forth on his feet. He would not go back to adolescent behavior now. “I’m not sure what you mean, Miss Kringle. Did you not understand the message?” Oh crud, oh crud, was he going to have to explain it to her? In person?

“It’s a cupcake with a live bullet sticking out of it,” she said, as though that was not immediately apparent.

“It’s a riddle.”

“It’s menacing, and weird, and inedible.”

“So do you give up?” he blurted. He winced inside.

He could tell that she was just staring at him. See, this is why animals were better than people. They always gave you cues.

He laughed and stopped himself abruptly. “Miss Kringle, w-what is the difference, between an elephant, and a flea?”

She sighed hard. “I don’t know, Mr. Nygma.”

“Well, you see, an elephant can have fleas,” he held up a minutely shaking finger as if trying to argue a court case, “but a flea can’t have elephants!”

Had her mouth twitched, just a little bit?

“Mr. Nygma, you are without a doubt the strangest man I’ve ever met.”

See, now that was a good word. Strange meant people understood how smart he was. So why did he always have to hear it in such negative contexts? He tried to display how happy he felt. “I’m very flattered, Miss Kringle.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

Oh. “Miss Kringle, there is something important I would like to speak to you about. Privately.”

She hovered. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought she was angry. What had he done this time? “Mr. Nygma, if you are suggesting we find a storage closet, I will do no such thing.”

He blinked. “I don’t understand, Miss Kringle.”

She rolled her eyes. This one he had learned recently. He winced again at the sting of judgement. “I was thinking we could sit on that bench over there.” He pointed at one of the old wooden benches lining the walls near the entrance of the precinct. The one with the large white box tucked underneath it.

She paused. Was she surprised? “Yes, Mr. Nygma, that will do.”

They sat on the bench, and he pulled out the box and set it on top of the clipboard. He had been planning to wait, but he was too nervous. Every good plan needed some room to maneuver in.

He opened it. “I have more cupcakes,” he said as though that was not immediately apparent, presenting his smile again. He hoped she liked them. Hesitantly — oh no, she didn’t like them, she was just taking one to be nice — no, stop the presses, she was really eating it, maybe he had done a good thing. As always, he counted. One two three four five six seven eight cupcakes left. He took one himself, making sure to close the box and put it under the bench again so he wouldn’t be tempted to take another. Literature suggested that children of abusive households were more likely than their non-abused counterparts to develop eating disorders. He certainly knew that food was the only surefire way he had of being nice to people.

He bit the cupcake. The sugar rush instantly made him feel calmer. He wondered if anyone could tell.

“Miss Kringle,” he began, “You are a very intelligent woman.” There, that was a good opening statement. Factual, clean, devoid of messy emotions, led well into the objective of his conversation. “I know I am not socially adroit, probably even less so than I realize, and this leads me into situations I do not plan to be in.”

She held up one hand. “Mr. Nygma, let me stop you there. I know what you’re going to say, so let me save you the trouble.”

He sat, enthralled, while she finished her cupcake. He had always know she was smart.

“You think that I am very pretty, and you are very interested in getting to know me better. You believe that we have made some kind of special connection working together these last few months, and perhaps hope to get dinner with me this week. You see your attempt to reorganize the Records Annex and your leaving two weeks’ worth of blank crossword puzzles on my desk as an attempt to bond with me. I’m afraid that I am only interested, at best, in having you as a friend.”

His heart seemed lift rapidly upward like a cork. A very happy cork.

“Really?!”

She narrowed her eyes at him again. “You sound far more pleased than I was expecting.”

“I was hoping we could be friends,” he said excitedly.

“Really.”

“Yes, I’ve been concerned I haven’t been expressing myself right to you, but you really did know what I was going to say. Some of it, anyway. Say thirty percent.” He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to reach for the cupcake box. “I do want to be your friend.”

“My friend.”

He smiled again, hopeful.

“You sniff me when you come to drop forms off.”

“Is that not right? It’s what dogs do. I’m trying to say I want to get to know you.”

She adjusted her glasses. “Dogs also stick their noses into each other’s butts when they meet.”

“Well, being bipedal kinda puts the kibosh on that.”

She considered. “Fair enough. Well, consider your message received, so you can stop now.”

He saluted, grinning widely. He must be happy if he didn’t have to fake smiling. “Yes, ma’am! I was hoping we could get along. I don’t make friends easily. As someone who seems to also love order and putting things in order, I hoped you shared my love of puzzles. It’s the only way I can really express myself.”

“Speaking of which…” She delicately placed the riddle on his clipboard.

He blinked, and spoke before he could chicken out. “The cupcake is sweet, the bullet is deadly. I fear that I have offended you when I didn’t expect to.”

“ _Shot through the heart_ ,” she sang suddenly, and he thought they were both surprised by that. Certainly, they both smiled, and something seemed to break. She brushed crumbs off her lap away from him. “Mr. Nygma, I accept your apology. And I think, if you can accept some gentle constraints on your behavior, I would be happy to be your friend.”

 

?           ?            ?

 

They got along well after that. His new medication helped. They would watch TV, snuggle, and play board games. They would listen to “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” on NPR. They went to see _Alien_ together. Just from having one person who he knew liked him, his anxiety began to lift. With a few false starts, Edward managed to stop eating sugar and stop drinking caffeine. He felt lighter, every day. They still had issues, of course. Edward had to fight himself not to cling onto Kristen like a puppy, especially at work, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not convince Kristen that she deserved better than that supercilious slimeball Flass. They sometimes had trouble communicating, and got into arguments about nothing at all. He had been amazed to find that Kristen actually had lower self-esteem than he did, and offered to split his pills with her. She had thought he was offering her drugs, and… well, point was all misunderstandings on the subject were over now.

When Flass was arrested, Kristen cried for days. Edward did his best to comfort her, but honestly didn’t know what to say. He got what he deserved? He was a cad, and she could do better? It wasn’t her fault the relationship hadn’t ended before now? He understood what it was like to feel obligated to stay in a relationship with someone, how they played on your weaknesses and fears to keep you controlled. He couldn’t say any of this, of course, so mostly he just sat and listened to her, and worried about her health.

About a week later, she came into where he was working in Thompkins’ laboratory under the pretext of picking up some reports. Her makeup looked neater than it had been for a few days. She stopped by his desk and leaned down over him.

“I want you to know, Ed,” she said in an undertone, putting a hand on his arm, “that you don’t need to keep worrying about me. I’ve realized there are far better men in the world than Arnold Flass.”

He looked up at her. “Please be sure. I want you to end up with someone who cares about you. It’s called compersion.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds sweet,” she said, and went back about her business and left. He leaned back in his chair and let loose the entire contents of his lungs in a vast exhale. Suddenly his day was looking much better. She was getting a boyfriend, a _real_ boyfriend. Someone who would make her happy. He couldn’t _wait_ to invite them both over to dinner. He flipped a few pages in the dictionary he had taken out for light reading and tapped an entry, smiling.

_COMPERSION (noun): The feeling of joy one has experiencing another's joy; the feeling of joy associated with seeing a loved one love another. Contrast JEALOUSY._

He went back to removing the tomato chunks from his fried rice. Fourteen of them so far. This takeout place was amazing, but they always put tomato in their fried rice, and he was still too shy to ask for it without.

 

?           ?            ?

 

He should have just said it then, he realized that now. Just three simple words, “I love you,” and neither of them would have had to worry about the next disaster-in-blue that was coming up. But talking was hard, and he was not an aggressive man. He had met aggressive men, even dated one of them for a few weeks, and he had no wish to be one. He had wanted to let Kirsten find her own way without foisting a messy choice upon her. In retrospect, that had been a mistake. He should have just gone for it, and let the cards fall. Unless she had ended everything herself, he would have been perfectly happy for things to continue as they were.

On the face of it, Dougherty was a better choice than Flass. He wasn’t smarmy or wheedling, just a little too full of himself, the sort of man who was used to going through life letting his fists talk for him, and who mistook infamy for respect. He spoke highly of Kirsten in company and quite publicly brought her flowers. He had a controlling, prideful way around her that Kristen clearly mistook for affection. And it had finally brought Ed to the boiling point when he first saw the bruises.

He hadn’t even known what he was doing in those first few minutes. One second he had been talking to Kristen and she had been rolling down her sleeve, asking him not to go to anyone right away, and the next he was suddenly walking — no, _striding_ down to the bottom of the stairs where that lumbering can of Spam was shooting the shit with his buddies. Six of them.

He shoved Officer Argyle aside and kept his gaze level. He was so furious that eye contact meant nothing to him. “Officer Dougherty,” he began, “it has come to my attention that you are engaging in disreputable conduct with Miss Kringle. You need to stop.”

Doughty was standing several steps below, but he still managed to loom over Edward. He smirked, confident. “Are you getting in my business, Riddle Man? It's got nothing to do with you."

“That’s not my name. And actually,” he pushed up his glasses, “it does. I’m telling you to leave Miss Kringle alone.”

Dougherty looked around at his friends, smiling in disbelief. Had this man ever stopped being a schoolyard bully? He brought his face offensively close. Edward could smell bagel. “And if I don’t?”

“If you refuse to disengage interactions with her, I will be forced to inform Captain Essen of your behavior, and advise Miss Kringle to break up with you. If neither of those are sufficient…” he stared Dougherty full in the face. “You’ll have to deal with me.”

Laughing, Dougherty and his buddies had walked away, and Edward breathed slowly in and out. He felt numb at his fingertips. Looking down, he saw his hands were twitching. He body was lab equipment. Inside the delicate glass tubes and pipettes of his veins blew a vast sea of chemical rage, torrential, a screaming inferno ready to be unleashed. It just needed the right additive, like pure alkali metal doused in water, to explode. He turned down the burner and covered his concoction under a glass lid, where he could admire it but not disturb it. In time. He needed to save this energy for when he needed it.

He watched them walk away, and did not stop watching even after they had walked out of his sight. His actions might be cold and slow, but like a glacier, they would crush everything in their path.

 

?           ?            ?

 

“It was stupid, just a stupid thing,” Kristen told him that night, sitting in his apartment over pizza. “It didn’t even hurt that much.”

“That’s not the point. He shouldn’t act that way.”

“It was one mistake, Ed. It wasn’t even that bad.” She took a bite of pizza, defiantly. “Look, Ed, it’s not that simple. If he was like this all the time, I’d say, yeah, dump him so hard he cracks the sidewalk. But I swear, he’s not. He’s so nice, the rest of the time. I’ve never had a man bring me flowers before. So, it seems like a silly thing to complain about.” She swallowed, hard. “I’ve had worse.” But she was starting to cry.

He took her hand with an effort. “ _I bend in a storm, but I stay in the ground,_

_I stand in the current, and endure the pressure,_

_Tethered here and tethered there, yet growing all the while,_

_Carve up my outside, but still I stand strong,_

_What am I?_ ”

She smiled and said through her tears, “It’s me, isn’t it? You’re so corny.”

“Actually I was thinking of a tree, but yes, the ultimate goal was to apply it to your situation.”

She laughed, jerkily, and he hugged her, probably not well. The inner mixture was bubbling dangerously high. He did not think that Dougherty would give up without violence; it would endanger his sense of masculine pride.

“Just because someone does good things for you some of the time,” he said, thinking of his father, “doesn’t excuse the rest of it.”

She pushed him off. “You’re right,” she said, dabbing her eyes on her sweater, then with more confidence: “No, you’re right. I’m breaking up with him.” She looked up through her red-rimmed eyes and smiled a frightened, brave smile. “I… I can find someone better. I’m doing it, tomorrow night. We have a date.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Tell me where. I can wait in my car. Anything happens, I’m right out there with a cell phone.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sudden sob, like she was physically choking back something awful. “You’d do that?”

“Kristen, I know what it’s like to make excuses for people who hurt you. To this day, I can’t say the words ‘m-my f—’.” He gave up. “Well, like I said, I can’t say it. But I know what it’s like not to have anyone to turn to, and I just want—” and they were both crying now, “—I want to give someone else the help I never got. I-I know that sounds pathetic, saying it aloud, but I…”

“It sounds like you care. That’s all that matters.”

 

?           ?            ?

 

He was parked outside her house. It was five minutes twenty seconds to eight. He had one hand on his cell phone and the other on the steering wheel, and he stared out the window like he was searching for clues in the pattern of the streetlights. It was starting to storm, never a good sign. There were five things in his glove compartment: two latex gloves, an emergency kit, a flashlight, and a large rolled-up set of knives that distinctly did not resemble kitchen equipment. They were old but still sharp. They were the only thing he had chosen to keep of Adrian “Skinny” Nashton, who had made his living in Gotham’s underground, knife fighting. And he had made sure his son knew how to use them.

Officer Dougherty’s car pulled up. Edward watched him park calmly, without blinking. He watched Dougherty get out, a package of some sort under his arm, and be buzzed into the building. He vaguely wished for a cup of coffee, like another person might wish for a cigarette.

“I picked the wrong day to quit drinking,” he said aloud to himself, and smiled.

He did not see the argument, and he would have heard screaming or things breaking. It was a rather boring wait really, except for the growing thunderstorm and the boil of controlled anger inside him. He just knew it had been a bad scene by the way Dougherty came stomping down the stairs. He glanced at the phone to double-check. Kristen had not called him. He glanced up and saw her appear at the window. Her hair was messy, and he thought he saw blood coming out of her nose. She looked down at where he was, nodded tiredly, and shut the curtains.

Dougherty was walking hurriedly to his car. Now was the time. Edward had to make a choice. Let the mixture cool and risk it hardening inside him to be carried in his gut forever, or let it blow out and risk serious personal harm.

He got out of the car.

“Officer Dougherty.”

He had been concerned that Dougherty would just drive away. But he was angry, and when he saw Edward he thought he had found someone to vent his anger on.

“Riddle Man?” He ran across the street like a charging bull, and even in his ascended state Edward had to stop himself from taking a step back. Dougherty seized him by the collar and pulled him up. “This your doing, Riddle Man?” He shook him, hard. Edward fought to keep his breath under control.

“No, it’s yours,” he said, and that was when Dougherty had started hitting him.

He didn’t remember, now, how the knife had gotten out of his pocket into his hand. He didn’t know if he had made sure his body was loose, kept his footwork straight, done all of the things he had told himself he would do if it came to this moment. It might have even been an accident. Certainly he hadn’t expected to stab Dougherty. These knives were made for slicing and nicking; sport, not murder. But the next thing he knew, he was curled up against the wheel of his car, and he was lunging forward, and his knife was buried in Dougherty’s stomach. There was a space, just a second long, when he looked up, and his face was slack with utter blank surprise. His eyes seemed to say, _Riddle Man, I didn’t think you had it in you_ , and then Edward was advancing, moving to one side, then the other. The entire weight of his body went in behind his fingers, over and over. He was a well-oiled machine, no thoughts, no emotions except the rising exhilaration. The sound was lost in the crashes of thunder, and once, a train moving rapidly on the tracks overhead.

He lost count.

 

?           ?            ?

 

He sat back and folded his hands. “Kristen, I know it’s our third date.”

She smiled at him. “I know you know.”

It was six weeks later. They were sitting in his apartment with the curtains shut. He had cooked a real dinner this time, and he thought he had done pretty well. She was on the couch, and he was on the floor near the desk, squinting a little. He had found his glasses under the car after the fight with Dougherty, with one lens cracked. In one more month his insurance would roll back over and he’d be covered for new ones.

“I know we’re probably moving slower than most of your other dates have done, but I know the third date is when we’re supposed to decide if we’re seriously going to be a thing, and there’s something that I haven’t been honest with you about, that I think we should get out of the way now if we’re going to move forward.” She was going to figure it out anyway, and he knew it would be messier if she did before he told her. Besides, it wasn’t exactly a normal thing people lied to their significant others about… at least, not as far as he knew. This _was_ Gotham.

“You wrote Dougherty’s note,” she said.

He stopped. It was… simultaneously relieving and anxiety-inducing. She was so close… yet not. For a moment, he was tempted to let it go at that, but he knew that this would come back to haunt him if he did. Best bite the bullet and get it over with.

“…How did you know?” he said cautiously.

She shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “It… didn’t sound like him. Plus about a week later, I realized that the first letter of every line spelled out your name. Knowing how obsessive you are with puzzles…”

“Plus Dougherty wasn’t that smart,” he muttered under his breath.

“Well, no,” she admitted. “I… I’ve actually thought about it a lot, and I’ve decided that I appreciate you trying to spare my feelings.” She held up her hand to stop what he was going to say. “I don’t want you to do it again, but I know that I was, um, rather raw that week, and I appreciate you trying to end things cleanly in my mind. But if anything like that happens again, I want to know exactly how it happens. No more twisting the truth.”

He took a deep breath. “No more. Got it. That’s, uh, actually what I was hoping to talk to you about. There’s more.”

She looked surprised. “Like what?”

Well. Best get out with it. “Dougherty didn’t leave town. I killed him.”

He could see from her face that she didn’t understand. “…What?”

“I killed Dougherty the night you broke up with him,” he said, watching the realization slowly dawn on her face. “I… didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

She stared at him. “God, you’re not joking.”

He shook his head, feeling tears prick the corners of his eyes.

“You _killed_ him? How?”

“He attacked me. I had brought a knife for protection. Somehow, uh,” he swallowed back a nauseated feeling, “he got stabbed with it.”

“Oh my god. Ed, this is awful.”

He felt his face grow hard. “He had it coming.”

“Bu-but what did you do with the body?”

He sighed. “Dissolved it in acid in the ME’s room and smashed the bones to powder. Then I buried it in the woods.”

“What?!” she said again.

“I mean, it was too late to take it back. I figured I should do it right.”

She stuttered. “Ed, I don’t even know how to respond to this.”

“That’s okay. I… still don’t know how I feel about it.” He leaned forward a bit, concerned. “Are… you okay?”

“I-I don’t know. This, um, isn’t how I saw this evening going.”

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly. “I didn’t really want to have this conversation.”

“No, it’s, um, it’s good. It’s good we’re talking about this.” She shook her head. “God, listen to me. Like this is a normal thing to have a conversation about.”

“Well, this is Gotham,” he offered.

“But… what _happened_?”

“I confronted him outside your apartment. I wanted to make sure he’d leave you alone. He got violent. I don’t really remember what happened next. It happens in survival situations. Your animal brain takes over, and you don’t really process normally.”

“Oh, God, Ed, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten him all upset—”

He held up his hands. “No! Absolutely do not blame yourself. What happened was entirely on me.” He considered. “And on him, I suppose.”

“Didn’t you consider going to the police?” He saw from the look on her face that she realized immediately what a bad idea that was.

They both sat in silence for a bit, mulling things over. He appreciated they were at least trying to work through this monstrous thing as a couple. Most people would have just dialed the cops, or maybe Arkham Asylum, quite a bit ago.

“Kirsten, I understand if this… gives you second thoughts about being my girlfriend.”

“No shit, Ed!”

“And I’m sorry for bringing this up so suddenly. I’m just so scared.” He pushed up his glasses and stuttered, “L-literature suggests that women with unpleasant backgrounds with men tend to move from one abusive relationship to another, and they tend to get worse. Maybe the first one controls you emotionally, so the second hits you… the third or fourth can kill you. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t — I don’t want to be like m-m-my father. I’m not them. I want to be a good person.”

She got up. He saw her hands were shaking. “I-I hate to bring up that old phrase, but I…” she made a stunned face and blew out hard through her mouth, “I need time to _think_ about this.”

He felt his mouth begin to tremble uncontrollably. It wasn’t being found out so much, it was just that he was upsetting her. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes. I’m… not sure if that changes things, yet. I’ll, um, get my things.” She began moving around the apartment, getting her purse and coat. “I don’t actually know what I’m going to do about this.”

He reached his hand out. “I care about you. You know that, right?”

She stopped. “Yes, Ed. Yes, that is something I do know.”

He looked up, pleading, desperate. “You once told me, ‘there are far better men in the world than Arnold Flass.’ Are there?”

She smiled helplessly and walked out. He lay on the floor next to his cracked glasses and wept. It was all his fault. He didn’t deserve anything.

And why, why had killing him felt so _good_?


End file.
